Global and Local Observability of Hypergraphs
Chencheng Zhang, Hao Yang, Shaoxuan Cui, Bin Jiang, Ming Cao · IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control · 2026
This paper studies observability for non-uniform hypergraphs with inputs and outputs. To capture higher-order interactions, we define a canonical non-homogeneous dynamical system with nonlinear outputs on hypergraphs. We then construct algebraic necessary and sufficient conditions based on polynomial ideals and varieties for global observability at an initial state of hypergraphs. An example is given to illustrate the proposed criteria for observability. Further, necessary and sufficient conditions for local observability are derived based on rank conditions of observability matrices, which provide a framework to study local observability for non-uniform hypergraphs. Finally, the similarity of observability for hypergraphs is proposed using similarity of tensors, which reveals the relation of observability between two hypergraphs and helps to check the observability intuitively.